Ep 72 Caught in a Trap and They Walk Out

In this special deep dive into the law of “entrapment” and terrorism cases, Craig is joined by his uOttawa law school colleague Carissima Mathen. They talk about police “stings” and the difference between the Mr Big confessional sting and the sorts of stings that may raise concerns about entrapment. They then discuss the rules on entrapment — there are basically three types of entrapment that constitute an abuse of process and will cause a case to be tossed. Then they look at how entrapment issues have come up in terrorism cases like Hersi and the Via Rail prosecution, before turning to a detailed discussion of the case that was tossed for entrapment: Nuttall and Korody. (The decision of the BC Court of Appeal upholding a lower court finding of entrapment was released in December.) They end with some thoughts about the implications of this decision for police anti-terror investigations — and CSIS threat reduction.